Memories of research: the experience of a psychologist inside a women’s prison

Abstract

The text shows the reflections of a psychologist and researcher from her experience in a women’s prison unit from 2001 to 2003 in the city of São Paulo, the period during which she collected data to elaborate her Doctor’s Degree Dissertation for the Psychology Institute of the São Paulo University. The facts presented in this text report some of her experiences during her research time, specially regarding the impact that a prison institution exerts on those people who develop activities there, as well as, and mainly, on those who were sentenced. Law, Sociology, Psychology and Criminology Authors have been used as references to the reflections developed. The text’s purpose is to make the reader sensitive with the effects that prisons have over the human mind. Characterized as a text that privileges the female gender’s theme, it points towards the disregard with which the imprisoned women’s matters are treated within the scope of the national penitentiary policy.